NB: PAGE NOT YET COMPLETED, MORE TO BE ADDED SOON
Topics to be covered by short info sheets:
| 1) DLA Claims | 2) ICA benefit | 3) Mobility Allowance | 4) Blue Badge Scheme | 5) Family Fund / Extra |
| 6) Parent Partnership | 7) Free nappy provision over 3 yrs old | 8) Free Cinema pass for carers | 9) Wightlink disabled pass | |
Please email in any suggestions for other topics.
1) Disability Living Allowance (DLA) claims
These are just some thoughts on DLA and the claim process from personal and friends' experiences. For full info you should visit the official government website.
What is it?
Disability Living Allowance is paid by the government to qualifying disabled children and adults. It is a recognition of the extra care and expense involved in looking after a disabled child or adult.
There are two parts : help with personal care and help with mobility. The forms are lengthy but don't be put off. Depending on your child's disability, you can be paid the personal care element from when your child is 3 months old (earlier in special cases) but you have to be able to demonstrate that your baby would need significantly more care than any other 3 month old which can be tough unless there are clear medical issues as well as developmental ones. There are 3 levels depending on your child's needs: low, middle and high rate. High rate is given where a very high level level of care is required both day and night.
The mobility element can only be claimed when your child turns 3 years old. There are 2 levels: low and high rate. The high rate is only given where there are (i) a lot of difficulties with walking or (ii) where a child has severe behavioural difficulties that impact on your ability to get them from place to place. (ii) now appears only to be granted to children with severe behavioural dificulties who also are in receipt of high rate personal care allowance.
Note: claims will only be dated from the date your application is received, so make sure they are sent in promptly or in advance eg you can submit your mobility forms before your child turns 3 years old, but payment will only commence after their 3rd birthday.
Filling in the forms
The approach to these forms is to assume the recipient has no understanding of the disability concerned and therefore you need to clearly outline every area of difficulty. It helps if you have or know another child of a similar age that you can compare development with eg "my two year old now has 200 words in his vocabulary and uses short sentences ....but my three 1/2 year old (with special needs needs) has only 5 clear words and some makaton signing....".
I have found it useful to include a week's diary with my forms which set out a particular week's events in relation to your child. Many of the "how often" questions in relation to providing additional care in the form are tricky to answer with anything other than "all the time" so this diary is a useful way to show the reader of the form exactly what the additional care means day by day.
If you can, find someone who has had a successful application and whose child's needs are similar to yours. I would recommend asking them to go through your form with you, or they may offer to let you read a copy of their submitted claim form. Its tough having to focus on the negative aspects of our children's conditions, and the temptation might be not to elaborate too much. However, you need to provide a clear picture and to be honest the more detail about the areas of support the better. Talking to someone, or looking at their form might make you realise other things you do for your child that have become so second nature you don't even realise you are doing them anymore.
What happens if you are turned down?
If your claim is turned down, you can can ask for it to be reconsidered within 1 month of receiving your decision. If still unsuccessful, you can appeal against the decision and go to tribunal. Appropriate local people sit on this tribunal and hear your case, and this is often not as daunting as you would imagine. Many IWTLOG parents have been through this process and if you would like to talk to someone about it, please email us at iwtlopgroup@hotmail.o.uk and we will put you in touch with someone.
Sometimes you are turned down because at the date of your application it is hard to prove your child's needs are not yet substantially different from another child of the same age without special needs. There is nothing to stop you re-applying straight away completing the forms again based on your now slightly older child.
PARTS 2) & ONWARDS TO BE ADDED SOON>>>>>
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